1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a load control module. More particularly, the present invention relates to a load control module allowing an electrical equipment to perform diversified control functions.
2. Description of Related Art
With discovering of electricity by an American Franklin in the 18th century, civilization of human beings advanced a big step. In today's world, application of the electricity not only contributes productions of social materials, but also widely infiltrates human life in all dimensions. For example, the electrical equipments used in our daily life, such as illumination apparatus, air conditioner, electric fans, food heater . . . etc. are all driven by electric power for working normally.
During utilization of the electrical equipments, operation of the electrical equipments is generally controlled by a switch and a load control module, interactively. For example, FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram illustrating an application of a conventional illumination apparatus. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional illumination apparatus 100 includes a light-emitting diode (LED) 101 and a diode driver 102. Referring to FIG. 1 again, during operation, when the switch 110 is turned on, the conventional illumination apparatus 100 may work normally. Now, a conventional load control module 120 and the LED 101 may receive a supply voltage VS output from the switch 110, and the LED 101 may be driven by the supply voltage VS.
Correspondingly, the conventional load control module 120 converts the supply voltage VS output from the switch 110 into a control voltage VC having a fixed level. Then, the diode driver 102 may adjust a light source generated by the LED 101 to a fixed brightness according to the control voltage VC. On the other hand, when the switch 110 is turned off, the LED 101 and the load control module 120 are cut off from the power supply, and therefore the illumination apparatus 100 maintains a stop working mode, since the illumination apparatus 100 may not provide a light source normally.
According to the above description, operation mode of the conventional illumination apparatus 100 under interactive control of the switch 110 and the conventional load control module 120 can only be switched between a normal working mode and the stop working mode. During the normal working mode, the conventional load control module 120 can only adjust the light source generated by the conventional illumination apparatus 100 to the fixed brightness.
In other words, circuit performance of a general illumination apparatus or a electrical equipment under control of the switch and the conventional load control module is limited and cannot match a requirement of convenience. Therefore, how to operate the load control module in coordination with an operation of the switch so as to control the electrical equipments to perform diversified control functions has become one of the major subjects to various manufacturers during development of the load control module.